In the final episodes of Sex and the City - which some still consider a bible on all things trendy - Carrie Bradshaw was shown having lunch in a chic Parisian restaurant with a French woman. Ms Bradshaw loved the place. Her lunch date called it "hideous", with a level of disdain exclusive to the French, and pointed to the polycarbonate chairs. The chairs in question were the Louis Ghost armchairs by legendary French designer Philippe Starck. The 2002 polycarbonate reincarnation of the classic Louis VXI armchairs had the world divided -on screen and off. Just the way Starck likes it.
"I like to open the doors to people's brains," he says of his work; work which strikes conversations, debates and sometimes criticism. For nearly four decades, this unique creator, designer and architect, often called the ‘bad boy' of design, has been the genius behind some iconic destinations and unconventional, but thoroughly functional products with one collective ambition - "to take members of our cultural tribe out of themselves and, most importantly, towards something better."
By the age of 19, school-dropout Starck had established his first business in
In 1988, Starck was commissioned by famed nightclub impresario Ian Schrager, former co-owner of Studio 54, to refit the Royalton Hotel on
Expanding his empire to the Middle East, October last year saw the launch of an exclusive luxury apartment development in
Starck's intent across his various projects is akin to the way a director makes films. "Developing scenarios that will lift people out of the everyday and into an imaginative and creative mental world is what I am after." The areas of design he's explored are enormously diverse; from furniture to motorbikes, mega-yachts, even artistic direction for space-travel projects - the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in
With Starck, there has always been, and will continue to be, a duality when it comes to the designer the world sees him as, and who he sees himself as. Mega-billion dollar projects happily cohabit with mass-market products in his ever-expanding portfolio as he strives to make good design less elitist. "I have always imagined a world of democratic design," he said. "Quality objects at lower prices so that more people can enjoy the best." In 2002, he created a number of what are considered relatively inexpensive product designs for the large American retailer, Target Stores, and now his products are stocked at Pinkberry outlets the world over.
Not shy of exploring new media, Starck turned to TV in 2009 with the BBC2 reality show Design For Life where 12 design students battled it out for a six-month placement in Starck's design house. Long-time Starck critic, Stephen Bayley did not miss the opportunity to fire a bullet. He wrote in The Observer: ‘Nevermind self-promotion, as an ingenious recruitment policy it is another brilliant innovation by Starck. As television it is gruesome. As a comment on design it is depressing.'
The show was a hit anyway and Starck marched on to greener shores, literally. Long before it became fashionable, Starck believed in the ‘power of green'. Early on, he imagined Good Goods - "a catalogue of non-products for non-consumers in tomorrow's moral market" - and set up an organic food company. More recently he developed the concept of ‘democratic ecology' by creating affordable wind turbines for the home, soon to be followed by solar-powered boats and hydrogen cars.
In a career that has spanned four decades, Starck's stamp is everywhere. Yet, he remains a rebel who considers it his duty to share his ethical and subversive vision of a fairer world. As long as his works fill the world with love, poetry and humour, we won't be complaining.
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